When we think of extraterrestrial intelligence that might be out there among the stars, we tend to think of creatures not too unlike us, though maybe with gray skin, probably bald and with big black eyes. We focus on the familiar, humanoids. But there are many intelligent species on Earth that are nonhumanoid: dolphins, crows, pigs and—with swarm if not individual intelligence—ants and bees. The film "Arrival" conceived of hexapod beings more capable than humans and with a more sophisticated communication system.
Searches for extraterrestrial signals also mostly look for the currently familiar, primarily radio signals, the kind that we have been emitting for a hundred years. Since 2016, the Breakthrough Listen initiative has also been looking for optical laser transmissions.
Our transition to cable TV and the internet leaves Earth less "radio loud," and any aliens might have gone through a similar short period of radio activity. This suggests "new paradigmatic frameworks could be necessary to recognize intelligent alien signals in astronomical data," write a group of American scientists in the journal Scientific Reports.
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